Lives cut short? Study says US foreign aid cuts could derail TB war worldwide

New Delhi: Recent cuts to US foreign aid could impact tuberculosis programmes in high-burden countries like India, potentially resulting in additional 22 lakh deaths over the next five years, a study has estimated.

The US contributed over 55 per cent of foreign funds for tuberculosis (TB) programmes in 2024, researchers from the US-based Avenir Health and ‘Stop TB Partnership’, a United Nations entity, said.

In March, President Donald Trump’s administration announced an 83 per cent cut to all programmes at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The team modelled how cuts to USAID -- the world’s largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid -- could impact 26 countries known to suffer a high burden due to the bacterial disease and depend on the funds, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and those in Africa. The worst case scenario -- in which TB programmes are impacted over a long-term -- could result in additional 107 lakh cases and 22 lakh deaths across the 26 high-burden countries between 2025 and 2030, estimates the study published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health.

India was analysed to depend on 15 per cent of USAID funding for its national TB programmes, according to the study.

The authors wrote, “The loss of US funding endangers global TB control efforts, jeopardising progress towards End TB and SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) targets, and potentially puts millions of lives at risk.”

Short-term disruptions will severely impact vulnerable populations, with an alternative funding urgently needed to sustain critical TB prevention and treatment efforts, they said.

In the best case scenario -- where TB programmes recover funding in three months -- the study estimated additional 6.3 lakh cases and around one lakh deaths could occur due to the bacterial infection over the following five years.

Publicly available expenditure data reported by countries every year to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to calculate a nation’s dependency on US government’s funding for TB programmes.

In 2015, the UN adopted the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, which outlines goals and steps “urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path”. Goals include ending poverty and tackling climate change, among others.